Why was the Afghan data breach kept secret?

0:02Hi, I'm Charlie Duffield and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up later in the show, the funniest TV show that no one is watching. But first, a major data breach which led to thousands of Afghans being secretly relocated to the UK became public knowledge for the first time this week. And the former Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, has now defended the use of an unprecedented super injunction, which was used to suppress the blunder that led to the government relocating tens of thousands of Afghans.

0:51The Afghanistan response route was created after it became apparent that personal information about 18 ,700 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been leaked by mistake. by a British defence official in early 2022. Previous Conservative governments obtained a High Court super injunction banning any reporting of the leak until it was finally lifted on Tuesday. The Defence Secretary, John Healy, has offered a sincere apology on behalf of the government. Joining us now is the Standards Court's correspondent, Tristan Kirk. Can you remind us what this blunder is? How was this leak discovered?

1:33So in 2022, in February, a UK soldier was in charge of managing details around a scheme to help Afghans who had assisted the UK during the time when we had troops on the ground there. And he was sending out what he thought was around about 150 people's details to some of his contacts. And what actually happened was a spreadsheet containing more than 18 ,000 people's details went out, first of all, to contacts and then on to other people within Afghanistan. It's essentially a mass leak of data accidentally sent out. The breach wasn't actually discovered by anyone, apparently, within the UK government or the Ministry of Defence until August 2023, when some of the details started to pop up online.

2:27We posted on Facebook. And that was the point where the government went to the court in London and asked a high court judge to impose an injunction on any publication of the list, the leak details, and also any publication of news reports of the fact of the leak itself. What had been put out there were names, locations, personal details of all of these people who had been of assistance to the UK, to our forces. And there were pretty grave fears at that point that those details would fall into the hands of the Taliban and those people who had assisted the UK would be targets for reprisals, torture, imprisonment and even death.

3:16So why are we only learning about this now? There are two scandals at play here. The first one is obviously the leak of the information, which, as I say, was more than three years ago. And the second one is the fact that a super injunction was obtained and then maintained for two years. The UK government went back to the court several times to ask for what was originally a four-month injunction to be extended and then extended again and again. And so there are some serious questions being asked at this point as to whether that level of secrecy was justified. And what damage has this cover-up done?

3:57There was not only a huge data breach, but what happened as a consequence of that was a rather sizeable resettlement scheme so that those people that may well have been put into danger, as well as their families, could be brought over from Afghanistan to the UK and settled here. And to all intents and purposes, That was happening in secret, where the media that knew about it were gagged essentially from saying anything about it at all. There were selected people within government who were told about it. But what we're learning is that there were people in government and in parliament who were not even told that this had happened.

4:41And so there's a real serious question mark over whether there was effective and proper scrutiny of the decisions that were being taken. This is obviously an important topic for a lot of people. Immigration is usually quite high on the news agenda at the moment. It's got massive cost implications, everything that is being done. and some people are raising concerns about the way that the government handled the resettlement scheme, the screening that may have been done. It could all have been done perfectly well, but the point is really that there was no effective scrutiny along the way and so that in itself breeds quite a lot of suspicion.

5:28The existence of a super injunction that's lasted for two years over such a matter of national significance is really potentially damaging for trust in the institutions that we have in this country. A massive mistake has been essentially covered up for two years. I think that really damages people's faith in that system where we are basically asked to trust people. On the other side, there is a lot of power and influence put into the hands of the judges in this country, particularly those working in the high court. And the public need to have that faith in judges. At the moment in this country, we have a real problem with trust in politicians and unfortunately trust in judges.

6:15A lot of people are now prone to or even enthusiastic about attacking the work of judges for political purposes. And so something like this only adds fuel to that fire. It only takes a moment to break the trust of the public and it can take years, lifetimes to put it back together again. So what happens now? One of the, I think, most startling points about all of this is that it was the Conservative government that this originally happened under and the super injunction was sought under. And there are some elements of the Conservative government, people in rather important positions, who say that they were either not aware of what was going on, or they weren't consulted before the superinjunction was sought, essentially saying that they were out of the loop.

7:06And there are MPs and peers who sit on a particular committee within Parliament to do with intelligence and security. And they are used to handling this kind of inquiry where they look at the work of, say, MI5. They are handling secrets and they are themselves bound by that secrecy. And this committee wasn't told about what was going on. They could have been providing that effective scrutiny going along. They were also out of the loop. So Labour have inherited this mess and are now dealing with the fallout. It's important to point out that they maintained the super injunction for a year after taking power.

7:50I mean, stopping short of a full inquiry, some sort of hearings within Parliament so that these questions can be asked and the answers can go on the record. We need to know going forward that things are going to be handled in the right way whenever this happens again. Anything else to add? One of the other questions around this scandal is how it was handled within the military itself. There were obviously senior figures within the Ministry of Defence and within the military who knew exactly what happened and were directly responsible for the data breach. There are suggestions in the media that at least one of them was trying to downplay the scandal.

8:30One of the senior generals has actually gone on to be promoted whilst this secret super injunction was in place and before anyone had a chance to really properly assess the scandal. So that's another dimension I think the public will be concerned about, is that senior figures may well be failing upwards and have not been properly held to account for what is a huge national scandal. Let's go to a break. Coming up in part two, the comedy show skewering the golden hills of Hollywood. We'll see you back here in just a moment.

9:12Welcome back. Now, if you're looking for a new TV show to binge, the studio is a worthy contender as it's nominated for Best Comedy Series at this year's Emmy nominations. It's flown under the radar in the UK, but the Standard's head of culture, Martin Robinson, describes it as a laugh-a-second comedy, as well as a satire, which manages to flay modern Hollywood and expose a great American rot. The show has even recreated an entire Golden Globe ceremony for one episode and makes use of extended takes to create a dizzying whirlwind effect. Here's a sneak peek of the trailer from Apple TV. Being the head of Continental is the only job I've ever wanted.

10:00I'm honoured, obviously, to be one of the people that gets to choose which movies get made and Which ones don't? That's huge. And I got into all this because, you know, I love movies, but now I have this fear that my job is to ruin them.

10:23Well, you're going to get us all fired. And Martin joins me now. Martin, you've raved about this show, The Studio. What's it actually about? It's a Seth Rogen comedy, and it's about the head of a studio called Matt Remick, who heads up Continental Studios, which is obviously a fictional studio. He's basically just taking it over. It's supposed to be a slightly trashy sort of studio. He takes it over and wants to make it into a cool and edgy and quality studio, but at the same time kind of doesn't really want to do that. He's actually more interested in being friends with stars and actually making lots of money for his bosses.

11:04So there's a contrast between him sort of trying to be a cool mate, sort of filmmaking maverick, and actually the demands of running at the Hollywood studio today, which essentially boils down to making really trashy but big budget films. And I know it features Catherine O 'Hara, who I'm a big fan of, but what other stars make it worth watching? Part of the brilliance is that there's a really nice cast around him who plays sort of his fellow execs at Continental Studios. People like Catherine Han, who plays like the marketing executive. Part of the fun of the show is that there's loads and loads of cameos.

11:40So there's people like Dave Franco and particularly Bryan Cranston, who plays Seth Rogen's boss. They sort of like drift in and out of episodes. Also people like Zoe Kravitz is in it. So there's loads and loads of cameos and fun, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard. They all sort of play very exaggerated versions of themselves. And that's where a lot of the fun comes from. Bryan Cranston in particular is just hilarious. There's a whole sequence where he's like an aging sort of CEO of the company. But he accidentally takes loads and loads of magic mushrooms and sort of goes on the rampage around a Las Vegas hotel.

12:15This year, it's nominated for Best Comedy at the Emmys. What makes this show so special? I suppose what makes it really special is just that it's genuinely really, really funny. So it's an interesting year. The Bear is nominated in that category as well. It does have its funny moments, but it's a drama. But it's quite rare to see something so out and out, outrageous, instantly, laugh out loud funny. It really is sort of like a laugh a minute show. So that's what makes it special, but also it has a little bit of depth to it. It really does expose Hollywood at the moment for being particularly sort of shallow, something that's more interested in IPs, big franchises like Barbie or something like that, rather than actually making quality film.

13:01The series revolves around them trying to do a Kool-Aid movie, which Kool-Aid is a big thing in the States in particular, just like a soft drink. But there's a lot of that. So while Remy's trying to hang out with Scorsese and stuff, what he's really got to do is deliver a big Kool-Aid movie that's going to bring in a lot of cash. So it really skewers contemporary Hollywood really well. And tell me more about how the way it's filmed amplifies the comedic effect. A lot of it is filmed in one takes. So there's one entire episode that's just one take, but a lot of the scenes in all the episodes are just done in one take, these really long extended sequences.

13:38is it just works really really well it's just as a technical feat it's pretty impressive but also just serves the comedy really well because it just it allows the build-up of lots of tension and lots of little betrayals between characters so you'll follow characters sort of through different meetings and around the studio lot and you'll sort of see how ideas for a film will get pulled apart by different departments someone will compromise something someone will be manipulated to go another way and this person is cast and so very cleverly sort of shows you kind of the way that hollywood works is it's extremely dysfunctional but just aside from anything else it just means that for instance you'll have brian cranston being this sort of drugged up maniac it allows you to sort of like follow him over a long period as he drifts around causing chaos so just that loan is part of its unique genius it's an interesting year in which The other big news around the Emmys is that Adolescence has got some key nominations, particularly in the acting categories.

14:41And it's quite interesting to see how there's an echo between the studio and Adolescence just in this one take idea. It's quite interesting to see how those kind of technical accomplishments become part of these big celebrated shows, but how differently that technique serves a different purpose in the two. So, you know, adolescence is very serious and uses one takes to show lives unravelling in real time, whereas the studio uses it for comic purposes to see people being destroyed in an amusing way in that short period. So it's quite an interesting sort of parallel between two very different shows.

15:20And that's The Standard. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. if you'd like to get in touch please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk we'll be back here on monday at 5 p.m and we'll see you then